:: View topic - 3.15-16.07 Kaweah: Sawtooth Nat. Forest, ID and Snowbird, UT

my two friends (Chris Cass and Skip Swenson) and i traveled to ski in the Wasatch mountains in Utah this past week. on our way we took a quick detour and i skied the Kaweah for the first time in the Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho -- the Magic Mountains to be exact. it was a quick tour. i noted earlier that the Kaweahs are very soft. in fact, they're too soft for my taste, but i decided to ride them as hard as possible for the fun of it (and a good cause). here's a photo taken by Chris as i flex a Kaweah:

the previous day, i weighed them at Kelvin's place: 3.5 lbs/each. not bad.

my first impression after skiing them was they were easy to manuever, mostly due to their weight and the semi-deep sidecut i chose. the other thing that immediately caught my attention was they were extremely soft and i had to pay attention to where i loaded the ski. one thing for sure: there was not enough support at the tail to get sloppy, so i really had to stay balanced over the skis; otherwise, it was wheelie time! and of course, they felt damp, but i needed more proof, and skiing them inbounds would provide more meaningful vertical.

the next day (Friday) i skied Snowbird resort in Utah with a handful of friends. the weather was incredibly beautiful, but hot. spring conditions all over the mountain. at first i was concerned about how soft the Kaweah were and there was a good chance of breakage. but i set all reservations aside and skied them anyway. yes they're soft and yes i had to stay balanced, but they were surprisingly fun. by design the skis were incredibly damp -- the rubber, AL, and steel seems to make a difference. i skied them rather fast and felt very comfortable at high speed. the tips did not chatter and they maintained comfortable edge grip throughout the turn. even on hard-pack (and icy patches), they carved beautifully with good edge hold. i will continue to experiment with these materials.

the next day (Saturday), i skied Snowbird again and i met up with Wheezer (Tom) and powdercow (Ben), two members of our forum. it was nice to put faces to forum names. we had a great time chatting about skis and skiing. Tom had some beautiful skis and he skied them in great form. (unfortunately, i missed his son Armada. next time!) Ben's craftsmanship was impressive -- his skis looked like something that came out of a big-name factory -- very clean! he too was skiing very, very well. i was impressed and very excited to meet passionate skiers on homemade boards. thanks for skiing with me and my friends, Tom and Ben! i shot photos and videos of the two of them skiing. below are a few photos of Tom and Ben. i'll make a video soon and have it posted.

as for the Kaweah, i skied them even harder on this day. no breakage, just a big smile on my face at the end of the day. i'm cooking up another pair based on this design....

Wheezer (Tom)

powdercow (Ben)

Ahh.. the joys of late-season sking! Sound like your design might kick butt with v.2

And I just have to say.. you guys suck!!! No more skiing till next year for me..

Glad you guys had fun, wish I could have made it down. As it turns out I got nothing done this weekend. I came down with bronchitis.

Kam the skis sound sweet. Could have been interesting to put a fat crack like me on them to see how they do. I have been very surprised at the range of peoples weights that work on the Doods. Everyone form 145-245 lbs. The lighter guys want a shorter ski for them.

Hafte

Good update on the skis and I'm sure great time with fellow builders! I was wondering why you figured that the new sticks were going to break? What was it that was going to happen? I have seen your "tests" on other skis and they look to hold up just fine.

RA

Looks like u guys had a nice day of spring skiing, although, I wish winter had stayed a little bit longer( not enough powder days lol). Sorry i couldn't make it up, spending all of my money on my press right now haha.

I'm curious about the aluminum, I thought it would make the ski a lot stiffer? Was this maybe due to the maple core?

freestyleskier: sorry we missed you. next time.

here's a quick video of the Kaweah in action (Click here (1.4 MB)). Note: i'm skiing them alpine-style on tele bindings, just to get a feel for how they perform at high speed.

i'll have some video of powdercow and Wheezer soon...

Just wanted to insert my perspective on Saturday. It was without a doubt one of the best days I have had on skis. Kams posse (Skip, Todd, Eric, Cass, Jen, and Allyson) are ripping people and ripping skiers. From the first run in mineral basin it was obvious that this would be a day where I would need to push myself just to keep up, which of course led to a rather spectacular crash, I was glad Kam and his camera were already down the hill.

After a couple of runs we met up with Wheezer and his daughter and the ripping continued. Wheezer and I laughed about how both of us felt like we were on some sort of a pilgrimage to the ski building temple to visit the guru. Kam obliged us by looking the part, complete with elaborate headdress (partly visible in movie).

It was very fun to see that many homebuilt pairs in one place and talk skis with everyone. In fact we got so into our ski building discussions that I was afraid we were boring Kams friends. That is until they started throwing out ideas and suggestions of their own, including field replaceable dampening materials and a very unique topsheet material.

Watching Kam ski was also fun since the combination of soft ski and very smooth tele technique gave the illusion that he was drifting along effortlessly even at high speeds. It was actually a little deceptive or disorienting to watch. The thing that struck me the most about the whole day is how fun it might be to get everyone together sometime. This season is probably to far gone but maybe next spring we should plan something out. If there is interest I would be happy to help organize.

Rockin' on the Kaweah and lookin' really good.

I, too, hope someday to partake in said pilgrimage. Looks and sounds like a very good time.

bigKam,

Couldn't see the headdress too well, but sure do dig the red shades

.

G-man

A picture on the home page of SkiBuilders! Even better than getting your picture on the cover of The Rolling Stone. I really enjoyed meeting up with Kam (Big) and Ben (powdercow). Both are awesome skiers. At first I thought Ben didn't bring his homemades cause they looked flawless. He really does nice work.

Neener neener to all of you who couldn't make it to Snowbird Saturday. Bluebird sky and great spring conditions. Next year let's all try to get together!

i don't know if i've ever been surrounded by so many homemade skis before this weekend...? (except in the garage)

anyway it was a blast for sure being up at the 'bird, and i too enjoyed putting faces to names to skis. thanks for a great day you guys!

just finished the video of powdercow and Wheezer skiing at Snowbird. click here to download (*.wmv, 8MB).

enjoy.

Thanks for making that video Kam. As usual the quality is top notch. That is my first time watching myself ski and it's definitely humbling, so here's to many seasons of improvement. Skiing with ski builders is excellent so lets do it again soon.

Some of you may have seen my post on the need for help with my cat track on the press. Well here is the result of my last experiment. The skis are named "WICKED STICK" by "ROKMZ". My son, the computer wizard, did the grafics and the ski design for me. He was able to liven up the grafics with his usual flare! The #2 on the tail is to represent the second set of skis I have made. Kam, I hope you don't mind but I kinda took from your skis the "not made in..." idea(?).The skis had two problems.

1. The cat track issue of not pressing in the areas between the RL and tip and tail, and

2. The core shifted despite nailing the core to the base mold, or it may have been the base material?

Any way, I made a trip today to the mountains and gave them a run for there money! First turn was a crash then I setteled in and they are fantastic! Have you heard of the "KOOL AID"? It's the ear to ear smile that comes to your face in times of great pleasure! The ski dimensions are 122-98-114 and 185 length. Construction is poplar core with maple sidewall. Profile is 2-12-3mm tail. Iused 22oz triax aboce and below the core. Grafics are silk at tip and tail and the printed area is on rice paper. The skis are real close in weight and come in at 2000g.

Here are the skis in the shop with the bindings freshly mounted.

Here I am at the top of the mountain. You may notice the duct tape on the tip of one of the skis. I had problems with keeping the loop for the skins on the ski (tip too fat or loop too small? It is the largest loop that they made).

Here I am skiing the wicked sticks!

All in all, a great ski, and a great day! The skis take what I call patients while turning. My first skis could be turned very quick but these float and do turn with ease and do bring on the KOOL AID SMILE!

rockaukum

congrats! They look sweet!

Whats all that white stuff on the ground though

wow really impressive! and thanks for the reply in my gamma post too.

congradulations on a sucessful 2nd ski!

I am particulary interested in the graphics method. What type of printer did you use? and does the rice paper go 100% clear on the non printed bit or did you cut it out?

any way, well done.

schuss

I keep telling you guys those round tips are worthless for attaching climbing skins to

.

Hey, looks like the skis were definitely fun and performed well... and it doesn't look like you were in fluffy powder... nice flex, good form, pretty trees.

G-man

rockaukum: nice tips, but i would have softened the shape a bit like this:

overall, nice lookin' skis!

Hee, Hee, Hee, Hee...

Now, those tips look just like my tails... Hey! Rockaukum can just put his skins on backwards and climb 'switch'!

G-man

Schuss, The graphics were printed on a HP Deskjet 930c (whatever that is?). The rice paper was cut to the black parimeter on the design so I would minimize showing through. On the light backfround it is somewhat transparent however on a sample over the black silk, the graphic was very muted and you could see the rice paper. So I opted to go W/O the full cloth top.

Gman, Don't think I did not think of trying to figure something out about the skin issue. The fat tip should work very well in the soft and deep(I hope anyway). I'll solve the skin issue by making my own loops. They actually did end up holding on after having to pack them away four times that day. They had to because the duct tape got mangled in the packing process!

Kam, One thing at a time. It was enough to use your idea and come up with "NOT FROM CHINA" under the #2. But if your okay wiht that,Maybe my next skis (MOBETTA STICKS) will reflect the square tips!

RoboGeek, That would be.... I almost forgot, SNOW! It started as a beautiful sunny day. Our first run was great and the sun remained until we got to the top and started to have lunch. The clouds finally found us and begun their wonder and snow came a falling!

Cant' wait to go again.

Hey Gman, It should be snowing now? How about a Sierra Report? Dumping since sunday non stop?

rockaukum

Hey rockaukum,

You may or may not have picked up on it in the past, but the K's and I have this running joke with each other regarding tip design... goes back quite a ways. So, I think that the square tips were for my benefit

. My first pair skis sported some pretty pointed tips, mostly because I was so tired of my skins continually falling off of the round tips of my store bought skis. My latest skis aren't quite so pointed (industry pressure

), but I still make sure that a skin loop will stay in place. There are some newer tip loop designs that are more 'wrap over' rather than 'wrap around', and they work really well for round tips. Actually, round tips do provide for a bit better tip float (more surface area per a given tip length), and that's why I'm giving in a little to the 'round side'.

We got lots of big ol' snow flakes here for much of the morning, but nothing stuck for long (about 4,000 ft). Lots of precip for about 16 hours, though, so headed for the volcano in the morning to get some of that deep heavy face planting mank before it turns into something more skiable. I'll be using the big wide skis with the really

OK, I got my new skis back from the shop the other day and took them out Friday to the local resort. We received ~10 inches of new snow. Nice dry freshy oh yaa. We started out doing some car shuttles before the area opened, and made 4 runs on the backside with my Blizzard Titan XXLs (181, 122-82-102) just to see how the snow was. Steep, too many trees and the coverage on that side of the mountain was still a bit scary especially down by the road. There was a bit of sun baked crud under the fresh snow on that side also.

When the lifts started up Korki, Doug, and I stopped at the car to drive to the top and ski the area where the wind deposition and hill aspect are much better. I pulled out the new Big Labowski Doods (Doods for short), adjusted the hammerheads to fit my boots and took off for the trees between the runs. The skis are 188 cm 128-87-108, ~8lb and pretty soft. So soft that I was not sure how they were going to do on the packed powder runs. The ski shop flattened/structured the bottoms and set the edges. No wax and I have not detuned the tip edges at all. They were a bit slow on the flats, but it was a bit weird because I would pass my ski partners with a bit of incline but they seemed to have no glide across some of the traverses we do at this area. I think that will clear up after I scrape off the fuzzies and restructure them if that doesnt happen as I ski them.

The ride was awesome as good as the Blizzards. I was a bit hesitant to let them cut loose at first, but I found that they wanted to be opened up and skied hard. I had to stay on top of them and keep forward pressure on the boots in most cases. I did have to make some tail turns to keep the tips out of the tree tops still exposed above the snow. I was very impressed with my first pair. For the conditions that day they skied well and handled the short amount of packed runs I did that day very well. Going down hill they are fast and nimble for the length. I was out pacing my friends in the trees and steeper slopes even during the times when we were skiing by Braille. There were a couple of open slopes that we had no visual clues. It was difficult to tell if you were moving at times. They floated beautifully in the powder. Both tele and parallel turns are dreamy creamy.

Sunday I went out for a half day with my 12 year old daughter, so I stayed on or near the packed runs. The Doods are fast. The stickiness of the previous ski day was gone. The wind had come up the previous day and the snow had moved all over the mountain. I had hard pack, wind pack and powder all with in a few turns. The viability was good Sunday so I was really able to let the Doods run. I was able to transition from hard pack to wind pack to powder with impunity. Control at speed on hard pack (packed powder not ice it never is here) was not the issue that I thought it might be. So far the Doods seem to be a great all mountain ski for this area.

I cant want to get the Big Labowski Heavies done. They should be real hardpack screamers. Ill post specs on a TR when I get them done. They still need a bit of work to the side walls and a trip to the shop for tuning.

Its supposed to snow here Wednesday night and Thursday. Time to take another day off.

Hafte

hafte:

nice report, and thanks for sharing your thoughts about your new skis. i really like the name: Doods! so compared to mass-produced, do you think home-builts have a chance?

btw, i'm expecting to be in SLC in March. if you're near, we should converge for a few turns...

Big Kam, thanks. I think the Doods ski as well as my Blizzards. Do they have a chance? Most definitely!! Im happy enough with these that the blizzards will be the last skis I buy. I already have one person asking if I can make him some ascenders for climbing up and snowboarding down. We will also be making some snowboards soon too.

They have a silk and glass top sheet that I added after I trimmed the sidewalls, so they have kind of a capped look. Durability is my concern. I do mostly lift service skiing and get lots of vert in a day. My friend is going to give them a try tomorrow. Hes 235 lb. so that should be a really good test. He also has one of the largest quivers of skis around so he can give me some good feed back.

Ill be here in March. I live in Ogden and ski at Powder Mountain. Let me know if you come up this way. Dont tell anyone, but as mom and pop as this place is it kicks ass on SLC areas. Finding good snow here days after a storm is always possible.

Hafte

Hafte:

I'm interested in hearing more about how your Doods ski after your friend takes them out. Durability is also a concern for us, but as time passes I'm confident we'll understand the process better to make more robust skis.

Powder Mtn is a great little resort. I'm familiar with the area; in fact, skied there a number of times while studying at the Univ. of Utah. It's a great place, much like Beaver Mtn. in Logan Canyon where I learned to ski; Beaver was close to the little town of Tremonton where I spent my younger years. I recall that Power Mtn has catskiing.

I'll be sure to let you know when I visit.

Not to crash the party but if and when you guys meet up I would love to come up and make some turns and check the skis out. Here's to hoping the base gets a little thicker by March

hey Ben:

sounds like a plan. i'll figure out my travel schedule by the end of this month, then make a post about meeting up in SLC in March. it would be nice to ski with people on home-builts...

Ben, crash in all you want. I think it would be cool to see what youre doing. I should have a nice selection by then to check out.

Kam, the cat skiing has changed here over the last several years. They are only running the cat up Lightening Ridge towards James Peak. The newish pair-a-dice lift runs down to the old cat skiing pick up and goes up the ridge line to the top of Lakeview. All of the cat skiing on the east side of the area is accessed by the Sunrise Palma lift.

We were hit Thursday with a nice bit of snow in the morning. ~ 10 fell from 4 am 11am. And the snow was nice on top with a crust underneath that you could feel with the tails of your skis through the turns. My friend Korki put on the doods and rode them all day Thursday and half the day Friday. Hes 250 lb with gear on 5-10 and skis very hard and fast. He has ~40 years experience skiing and one of the biggest ski quivers I know about. Comments from him were Wow Im impressed, they dont feel like home made skis there is no home made fell to them ( he made this out to be a good thing. They have a nice solid feel and pop out of the turns nicely), Make me a pair like them for stiffness only use my salomans side cut and taper. I have this pattern done and have a pair in the shop now getting tuned up, but they are much stiffer. 1 mm of thickness and 3mm instead of 2mm tips makes a huge difference. One other thing he mentioned after skiing all day on them was that if he didnt like them he would have traded back out to one of his other pairs of skis. He wants to get out to the shop and help do the layup on the next few pairs and some snowboards. For a durability test he piled up into a cat track first run hiding in the foggy snowy conditions Thursday. I came in behind and saw him trying to get up. The skis held up well to the crash, and so did Koki

On Friday afternoon my friend Doug gave them a go. Hes 143 lb ~6 tall and has skied for the 20 or so years I have known him. He seemed to have no problem handling these skis. We made one long loop around the east side of the resort on some low aspect runs. He liked them, but would rather ski something in the 175-178 range.

I put in another day on the Doods with my daughter on the groomes Monday. What a blast. Morgan is still in the high speed snow plow stage, but having fun.

She is getting into the terrain park and testing her jumping skills a bit, so I was following her around clearing the table top and running the half pipe for fun. I havent done much in the way of jumping in years, but had a good time. The doods took a real pounding and stood up well to the weekend. The glass top sheet is showing some wear already, but no worse than the Titans did after a few days. I noticed a small ding on the top inside of the left ski, but no big deal. With the snow conditions as they are Im glad I have not hit much of anything. I plan to ski on these the rest of the season to see how they hold up.

Hafte

Here are a couple of pics of the skis. The color of the red ones (Doods) is really red when you see them in person. The others are my Blizzard titans and the Big Labowskis.

http://home.comcast.net/~mhafte/images/skis.jpg

My camera phone really sucks. Sorry about the poor quality.

Hafte

Hafte:

FYI, i'm going to be in SLC 3/16-17. skiing on Sat. PM me if you want to meet up for a few turns. looks like a few others on the forum are interested.

Kam, you are going to get me in trouble with the missus.

Just today we figured out that this Saturday would be the first one in a long time that I wouldn't be skiing, hiking or doing something other than housework. A honeydo list quickly materialized. Regardless I will make it work. I'll shoot you a pm so we can meet up. So where are we going?

bigKam and powdercow,

Would love to join you guys, but can't swing SLC at the present time. Rain check taken.

Have a great time.

G-man

G-man -

I have always wanted to make it out your direction (I assume reno/tahoe) for some spring peak bagging but I don't think it will happen this season. We might need to organize something for next year.

Ben,

I do backcountry ski patrol at our local volcano. The crews start plowing the road in early March, but don't generally get the road open until July 1st because of 20 to 30 feet of snow. Those of us who are on the patrol get access past the locked road gates, to the point where the plows are working, so that we can more easily keep tabs on what's going on in the backcountry. The gate pass also gives us primo access to mountain terrain which is only available to non-patrol folks via a 7 mile approach. There's a waiting list for my patrol position. I usually ski the great spring corn until July 4th.

I'm sworn to secrecy regarding the above location, but if you do get out this way next year, let me know a bit ahead of time. I just might be able to get you 'past the locked gate' to spring corn paradise.

Oh, ya, this year is pretty different and pretty sad... not much snow, and what we do have is melting fast with the 70 degree early March days. There may not be any skiing in July (or even May) this year.

G-man